> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.loganmartinisaac.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Isaiah 6 Exegetical Paper - URL: https://www.loganmartinisaac.com/portier-young-ot12d/ - Published: 2011-04-22T07:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-07-17T20:39:53.000Z - Author: Logan Martin Isaac - Tags: coursework, MTS, Anathea Portier Young *Submitted on April 22, 2011, to Anathea Portier Young in partial fulfillment of Intro to Old Testament Interpretation (OT12).* The commissioning scene of Isaiah 6:1-8 has been disproportionately focused on at the expense of the prophet’s actual commission in vv.9-13, propagating a reckless Christian optimism at the expense of a robust theodicial hermeneutic. Isaiah was one of the first prophets to begin recording prophetic ministry in written form, writing from Judah in the south from approximately 739 – 687 BCE, an early stage in Israel’s post-unified political atmosphere. While the prophet himself likely witnessed the destruction of Israel, his interest was on Judah and Jerusalem. The author of First Isaiah is only believed to have lived until the first quarter of the seventh century, and would not have experienced the Babylonian captivity and the destruction of his beloved city. His commission prophesies a wrath that only Second Isaiah is able to more fully extrapolate via the Servant Songs. What if God hardens the hearts of the people because his wrath is unfolding in anticipation of the vicarious suffering of Isaiah 42-53? Should we skip over it so quickly? What does it mean to read vv.11-13 as unjust suffering foreshadowing the redemption of the nations, whose injustice the people Israel certainly could not have known exhaustively? Surely the difficulty of reading the final third of Isaiah 6 is based on the fact that Israel, at least in this pericope, is somehow undeserving, in that they are prevented from repenting and averting the desolation to come. Isaiah, whose name means 'salvation of YHWH,' and particularly 6: 9-13, challenges us to consider to consider that salvation ***of*** God may at times be salvation ***from*** God. In this brief pericope, Christians come face to face with an internal critique of the instinct to externalize God’s wrath. In other words, we are confronted with the reality of God’s wrath upon God’s own – we see what ecclesially inclined discipline looks like. Isaiah and his prophetic mission, one of the central interests of Christian theological interpretation due to the prophet’s messianic expectancy, is revealed to be drastically less rosey than we would like. We catch a glimpse of divine discipline and we don’t like it – we shut our eyes, plug our ears and dull or minds in order to continue under the assumption of placid divine favor. Commentaries give several times more attention to the theologically palatable vision scene and conveniently skip over what God actually tells his messenger (who, in this case, is refused an intercessory role). If to be chosen is not always for reward, then, for what is Israel (and, by extension, the Church) chosen for? What does this pericope tell us about God’s justice, how can it reshape Christian theodicy? ### **Salvation of God – the convenient distraction of Isaiah’s vision** The commissioning scene of Isaiah 6:1-8 dominates patristic and modern Christian commentaries, giving Isaiah’s vocational task itself (deafening, blinding, and confusing the people) little attention. A cursory review of commentaries finds that vv.1-8 frequently contain much more material than do vv.9-13\. Most commentaries make a clear threshold between v.8 and v.9, in other words, between Isaiah volunteering for his unknown prophetic task and God’s explanation thereof. *Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture* includes nine full pages of commentary compiled from patristic sources on vv. 1-8, and only one measly page on vv. 9-13, including the verse quotation itself! Or another example, from Henry’s commentary on the bible; a total of 582 words are devoted to the sixth chapter of the book of Isaiah. The commissioning scene in vv.1-8 commands no less than 427 words in the commentary, 73% of the total word count for the chapter, whereas the eight verses only make up 61% of the chapter itself. “Disproportionate” seems a fitting characterization of the state of commentary on this important pericope. Yet, this disproportion would not, in and of itself, be problematic, were it not for the radical effect such selective attention has on Christian theology. To look so closely at one section disproportionately, you miss the forest for the trees, or, more precisely, the trees for the forest. While there is no such thing as a forest without trees, there is such a thing as a tree without a forest. In the same way, there is no such thing as a prophet apart from his or her actual prophetic task. One can have a vision and not be a prophet, but cannot be a prophet without one’s actual task. Isaiah, as a prophet, is given the task of hardening hearts, you cannot separate the man from his mission. Reading vv.1-8 and skimming vv.9-13 is like a food critic ordering filet mignon and only writing about the salad. Some commentaries indeed read selectively, skipping over important details made quite clear by the text. For example, the *New Interpreters Bible* claims that Isaiah does “not see God directly” in the vision of the temple. However, the text of Isaiah 6:1 & 5 tells another story. A number of English interpretations explicitly state otherwise, that it is precisely *because* Isaiah has seen the Lord in v.1 that he dreads for his life in v.5\. The sporadic attention given to Isaiah 6 is evidenced elsewhere, including the church father Augustine, who says of vv.9-13, in his *Predestination of the Saints*, “Behold mercy and judgment: mercy upon the elect… but judgment upon *the others* who have been blinded” (emphasis mine). It leaves one wondering if he has read the pericope carefully, since Isaiah is called to judge God’s *own* elect, “that people” of vv.9 & 10 to whom Isaiah had referred in v.5. Here the great theologian overlooks the bare fact that Isaiah is commanded to judge God’s *own elect*, that even the chosen people are not immune to the wrath of their covenant partner. Isaiah’s significance among Christian theologians through the ages has opened the prophet to scrutiny, and rightfully so. The commissioning scene should not be given such sporadic attention, especially given the fact that it is repeated nowhere else in the book that carries his name. While the vision in the Temple is awe-inspiring, it should not capture our attention like moths to the flame. Instead, Christians should be ready for the harsh judgment that God is commissioning Isaiah for; it is part and parcel to his preparation therefor in vv.1-8\. To hear and see Isaiah’s submission but ignore God’s command is to subject ourselves to the same theological dyslexia Isaiah is to bring his own people. Turning to more contemporary mainstream Christian culture, we find a similar exegetical disorientation. In a number of churches I have attended, there is substantial attention given to missionary activities. Time is frequently taken during announcements to share updates from missionaries that the particular church is supporting and a significant portion of the church’s budget is often dedicated to Missions ministries. When missionary elements make it into the liturgy, Isaiah 6:8 nearly always makes it into the program of worship. Furthermore, churches have missions departments dedicated to highly experiential, short-term mission trips, employing ministers as Missions Directors to send (mostly young) congregants to the farthest reaches of the globe to preach the gospel. At some Bible Colleges, students can receive a Bachelor of Arts in Missions, or, alternatively, “Cross Cultural Communications.” Such zealous pursuit of fun, travel, and adventure in the name of Christ often relies heavily upon the oft-repeated Isaian phrase “Here am I, send me!” A large handful of my friends who traveled overseas for missions trips would quote the popular Christian music group MercyMe, who released a song based on Isaiah 6, including the lyrics *Whom shall I send?* *Who will go for me?* *To the ends of the earth* *Who will rise up for their King* *Here am I, send me* *Here am I, send me* *How beautiful are feet of those who bring good news* *Proclaiming peace and your salvation* A far cry from its modern use in the missionary context, Isaiah’s call in chapter six is anything but good news, peace, and salvation. A closer look at vv.9-13 is in order, since it is a harrowing commission indeed, one that proclaims desolation, forsakenness, and inferno, and one that delegitimizes the popular usage of Isaiah 6\. Taking into consideration how influential vv.1-8 are, the following five verses, which describe what in fact Isaiah is being called to proclaim, vv.9-13 represents one of the greatest challenges to the Christian understanding of theodicy, the question of divine justice. ### **Salvation *from* God – Isaiah’s commission in context** The bulk of what Isaiah is being called to in his commission is contained in vv.9&10, where God tells the prophet; “Go, say to that people: ‘Hear, indeed, but do not understand; See, indeed, but do not grasp.’ Dull that people’s mind, Stop its ears, And seal its eyes — Lest, seeing with its eyes And hearing with its ears, It also grasp with its mind, And repent and save itself.” The prophet is to harden the hearts of the people of Israel. God calls him to prevent seeing, hearing, and grasping. Isaiah was not expecting this, in fact he had little reason to expect anything in particular – he volunteered before having any concrete idea what God may be doing with God’s people at this moment. Harden Israel’s hearts, the covenant partner of a benevolent God? It is clear in this short statement that, even if they desire to, Israel is not allowed to “repent and save itself.” The author drives the point home by using a chiasm in v.10: **mind > ears > eyes | eyes < ears < mind** The use here of somatic language gives the chiasm nuance and depth. The mind is a central feature of most any anthropological rhetoric – it is the seat of knowledge, the intellect, and reason. Ears represent the vessel by which experience is received by the mind in order to be interpreted. The eyes are another receptacle, but they hold deeper meaning than the ears in that they are a bidirectional vessel. In as much as they absorb experience, they also project character – as the windows to the soul, they allow light both in and out. In Hebrew, the word for eye shares a root with the word for fountain. By gluing the peoples’ eyes shut, by making their ears heavy, and their minds dull, God (through Isaiah) is placing Israel in relational stasis. No matter how moved they are to repentance, to grief, and toward healing, God’s hand of judgment will not be stilled. Imagine if your spouse were so callous and relationally stagnant, how hard that must be in that moment to remember they love you! And that is an optimistic reading. A pessimist might suggest that God has injustice in store for Israel, since they cannot understand, hear, or see so that they may be saved. Isaiah’s feet in the sixth chapter are not “*those* \[that\] *bring good news, proclaiming peace and* \[God’s\] *salvation”* as MercyMe seems to think they are*.* Or, if they are, we need to rethink salvation in light of vv.9-13\. ## **Isaiah in history** Isaiah’s historical context lends few, if any, answers to these important questions. Prior to Isaiah’s commissioning, in the first five chapters, the prophet speaks judgment upon the people for a number of failures, from war, to pride, to injustice in the land. Much of First Isaiah was written during the Syro-Ephramite Crisis, a time when the divided kingdom was at war both internally and externally; Israel to the north trying to convince Judah to the south to ally with Syria/Aram against the more powerful Assyria. Most of what Isaiah has to say about this particular event is not mentioned until the seventh and eight chapters. For this reason, it is difficult to make direct connections between the prophet’s commissioning and the historical events occurring and being recorded in the time (and chapters) surrounding his vocation narrative. In the same way the historical evidence offers little context for this particular pericope, the text itself seems to force the Temple scene and commission into its own distinctive segment. The sixth chapter is a self-contained whole, not dependent upon the immediately surrounding chapters. We know from v.5 that Israel is a “people of unclean lips” since Isaiah dwells among them and can speak with firsthand knowledge. Verse 9 is hard to interpret socially or historically, leaving us only with the impression that the people’s transgressions are so great that they must certainly deserve the desolation God has in store for them. If not, then God’s anger is arbitrary, and it is very difficult to retain a belief in an omnibenevolent deity. Isaiah is a Jerusalemite, from Judah, the southern kingdom that did not (initially at least) rely upon alliances for political stability. Based on the limited background we find in the surrounding text, it is hard to imagine that such a harsh punishment is deserved. After all, was it for unclean lips that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, or for something much more malevolent on his part? The question, then, is how this particular segment (vv.9-13) fits with broader Isaianic theology, with Second Isaiah in particular and its imagery of the suffering servant? If Isaiah’s call to ministry is to harden the hearts of his own community to prevent salvation and healing, how does this interact with the theodicial shift to vicarious suffering to explain God’s wrath upon God’s own? If it is agreed that Israel’s judgment seems excessive in relation to its having unclean lips, how then can we go further to suggest that the suffering they will endure is not internal punishment (for their own sins) but external salvation (for the whole world)? First Isaiah contains the prophet’s commissioning scene, which is not repeated elsewhere in the book. Therefore, we can safely assume that the commission of vv.9 & 10 is generally applicable to the whole of the book of Isaiah – i.e., the proper background for understanding his ministry is this troubling call to harden hearts. With that in mind, it is worth considering what heart-hardening has to do with vicarious suffering, which is what many Christians associate most strongly with Isaiah. It is Second Isaiah (chapters 40-55) that advances the idea that the suffering imposed by God is not simply for Israel’s own wrong doing, but sometimes for the sins of other nations. It is also where we find a peculiar verse, one that reminds readers that even misfortune and suffering are at God’s disposal - “I form light *and* create darkness, I make weal *and* create woe — I the LORD do *all* these things.” Read in light of Second Isaiah’s interest in explaining unjust suffering, perhaps there is reason to suggest that hardening Israel’s hearts in chapter 6 foreshadows God’s wrath on Israel as salvation for the nations. ### **Toward a more comprehensive theodicial hermeneutic** Theodicy for Christians wrestles with the question of divine justice in light of evil. Many theories have been advanced as to the purpose, the *telos,* of evil. Perhaps it goes without saying that theodicy generally attempts to defend the benevolence of God in light of the problem and presence of evil – how can God allow it to persist, and why does it seem God does nothing to prevent its perpetration? The *New Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible* outlines a number of different responses to evil that Christian theodicy proposes. Most relevant to my thesis are the responses of “Retributive” and “Substitutionary.” Retributive is the most common response to the presence of evil – evil and suffering exist as punishment for disobedience to God. Whether it is a Christian belief in original sin or a kind of utilitarian worldview, retribution is the simple formula that assumes God punishes individuals or communities for wrongdoing. If life is supposed to be fair, then if I am wronged, the person committing the wrong deserves retribution. However, this theodical belief relies upon freewill, on the agency of the perpetrator – i.e. God would not punish an agent who has not intended to do harm, or who was forced to commit an act. Isaiah’s commission, in this light, does not fit. If Israel will be made blind, deaf, and unaware by his ministry, then how could God punish them? Besides this particular passage, another worth considering is the hardening of Pharaohs heart in Exodus. Here again the reader is likely troubled by the harsh treatment of Egypt if it is accepted that God indeed prevented the ruler from seeing, hearing and understanding his own actions. Something about retribution rings true with us; if each good turn deserves another, doesn’t each evil turn deserve a bit of its own as well? Problem is, to be evil, the perpetrator must be aware and in control of his or her actions… otherwise, how can that person be deserving of punishment? Isaiah 6 has no satisfactory response to this question. The other response that I find much more relevant to Isaiah is a substitutionary theodicy, in which innocent suffering is understood to be redemptive for the guilty party. The moral force of innocence overcomes the power of evil, in either a preventative or reparative manner. A preventative example would be the intercession of Abraham on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah in Exodus 18 (the innocents present in the city should prevent God from destroying all), and reparative substitution is found in the form of the Temple sacrifices that cleansed the people of their sins (the animal’s innocence absorbs the wrong doings of the slaughterer). Second Isaiah takes up this substitutionary theodicy in ch.42-53 in the servant songs of Isaiah. The same servant who will “teach the true way to the nations” is the same who “offers \[his\] back to the floggers and \[his\] cheeks to those who tore out \[his\] hair”, and who did not hide his face from insult and scorn. At the heart of the prose is the suggestion that an innocent suffers at the hand of a perpetrator (presumably, the nations) for whom he is suffering, totally throwing on its head the dominant model of retributive divine justice. An innocent Israel absorbs and diffuses the guilt belonging to the world. Second Isaiah takes this idea and expands it, suggesting that Israel might suffer unjustly as a substitute for the guilt of the nations. It is through Isaiah’s model of the suffering servant that Christians justify the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The innocent stands judged in place of the guilty, suffering the wrath summoned by the transgression of the guilty party. But the innocent agent does not perpetrate the wrong; they might not see, hear, or understand the severity, or even the *reality*, of the wrong done for which God is pouring out wrath – they might not even know the evil has been done! For example, does the sacrificial lamb know of the sins committed by the community for which it is being sacrificed? Was it required that Christ explicitly knew, at the moment of his death, every single sin for which he was crucified, or is it sufficient to recognize the possibility thereof? This brings me back to Isaiah 6 and how Christian theodicy may become dislocated by a selective reading thereof that favors the rich theological ground of the vision in the Temple over the troubling theodicial suggestion of the commission itself, (which must be mapped onto the servant songs in Second Isaiah). The Temple vision itself provides substantial footing for a number of Christian theological concepts, including sanctification, reconciliation, eschatology, holiness, etc. But those concepts should not be divorced from the word God was preparing to speak to his servant, a troubling word of judgment against God’s very own covenantal partner. This reality should make us rethink the tone with which we go about extrapolating these concepts. There is a certain kind of recklessness that Isaiah displays in being ready to fulfill whatever God asked, which many missionaries do well to imitate. But there is another kind of recklessness that goes further to assume, as Augustine did in his *Predestination of the Saints*, that God’s wrath is only for “the others” and not for the community of believers. It is this excessive reckless optimism that can harden hearts, make ears heavy, and shut eyes to the transformation God has in store for the covenanted community. ## **Conclusions** The justice if God is a central question in any theological framework, Jewish or Christian. Given the prominence of the prophet Isaiah in academic and popular faith communities, it stands to reason that more care should be taken to read the prophet’s vision in light of what God goes on to tell him during his vocational call. Disproportionate attention on the theological suggestions inherent in vv.1-8 can inculcate a kind of communal self-certitude, which is thrown into doubt immediately in v.9 and made painfully clear in the concluding verses. If Isaiah 6 does anything, it should be to cultivate a healthy self-awareness before God, whose wrath is not spared upon the covenantal community. Instead of grasping at exclusivist answers that only indict nonmembers of the community of faith, as Augustine does, we should embrace a more expansive view of the justice (both love and wrath) of God, content in knowing only as much as we are capable. Even Isaiah knew not to doubt God’s harsh word for Israel, settling instead to ask merely how long the judgment would remain. To be chosen is not simply to be favored, as Isaiah makes clear especially in the Servant Songs, and we should avoid any tendency to paint ourselves the golden child by remembering the golden calf. We can make mistakes, even we can come under judgment. In those moments, instead of resisting and grasping at self-placating answers to our woes, we should wait patiently on the Lord even if we feel the punishment undeserved. The fact of the matter is that we may not fully comprehend the purpose or trajectory of the wrath. Even with out this knowledge, if we love God, we should rejoice in and celebrate God’s glory is being achieved, even if it is done at our expense. A particularly Christian theodicial perspective must, therefore, include Isaiah’s commission of judgment. If there is doubt as to the merit of God’s wrath against us, we should rest in the knowledge that God is working out the salvation of the whole world, even if it demands a little skin off our back.